Limiting Factors Expedite Progress

Today we’re finding a heavy single in the front squat. I’m not telling you to fail today, but if you do miss an attempt don’t let that good information go to waste. Think about it. The front squat is a complicated orchestra of movement and firing of muscle groups.

Finding a one rep max is a wonderful way to educate yourself about your limiting factors. These are the weak links in your chain so to speak. If you know what they are, you can improve faster (by simply bringing up the specific weakness to the rest of the movement’s benefit).

After all, we don’t have a front squat muscle. For some of us, our upper back strength is the limiting factor and at the heaviest weights we see that the bar breaks the posture and the upper back cannot keep the bar “racked” on the shoulders”. Others, meanwhile, will maintain perfect posture, but find themselves pinned to the bottom of their squat without the quad strength to make it out of the hole. An entirely different group of people will begin moving out of the hole and their knees will buckle in because of weak hips.

We all have areas of weakness that are holding us back. If you can understand your limiting factors in the gym, you can make importantly accurate adjustments in your training. If not, keep in mind that the game of improvement isn’t a race the turtle ever wins.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach